Case Study: Ceramic Tile Manufacturing - Garlock Hydra­Just™

A manufacturing facility in northern Florida was having trouble finding a seal for their clay slurry pumps. The highly abrasive nature of the clay coupled with an inconsistent water supply caused serious problems for both mechanical seals and packing, resulting in excessive downtime and a drag on profitability. In an effort to find something that would work, the plant tried a $1,500 mechanical seal with harder faces. Even these seals failed after an average of 30 days in\ service. And when a seal failed, it would take 4 hours of down time plus and additional 4 hours of maintenance labor to get the pump operational again. This is when the facility put the Garlock Hydra­Just™ Seal to the test. As a result the plant was able to go from monthly failures to annual maintenance and bring over $24,000 per year to the bottom line.